Shadow Memories: A Novel (The Singularity Conspiracy Book 1) Read online

“All right,” I said, “sounds like a deal.”

  “And hell, since you’re such a nice guy,” he said, gesturing for one of his men to grab the merchandise, “I’ll even give you some of those bullets. So you can shoot these fellas before they shoot you.”

  “Thanks.”

  He handed me a leather holster. “You ever shoot from the hip, Desmond?”

  “No, I never shot much at all.”

  “Well,” Barston said, loosening his tie and the button on his jacket, relishing the opportunity to teach, “you do it like this.” He placed his hand on the gun hanging from his holster. “Stare ‘em down, and then bang, smooth as waxed pussy, you slide it out and get ‘em between the eyes.”

  In a fluid motion, he brought a giant silver pistol out and had it against my head, pulling the trigger.

  The empty click echoed through my brain like the loudest of gunshots.

  “Woah, boy,” he said, putting the gun back, “you should have seen the look on your face. I dropped the clip out.” He kicked at the ground with his shoe, and something skittered along the floor. I exhaled. “You’re just lucky I didn’t have one in the chamber.”

  “You didn’t know?” I asked as we went up the stairs, once my voice had returned.

  He gave me a look.

  “Fifty-fifty.”

  29

  Ask Her

  “You tell Cassie to give me a ring sometime,” Barston said, leaning into the cab of my truck through the open window, “Ol’ Ben is always here to lend a pretty girl a hand.”

  He turned to walk away.

  “Hey,” I said, “how do you know her, anyway?”

  “Well,” he said, not missing a single step, “I owed Shadow a favor. So I check up on her, time to time. Bastard went just about crazy, but hell if he didn’t love his family. But that’s something you got to ask her yourself.”

  I pulled the truck out, looking in the backseat at my new purchases. The shoulder strap felt odd against my body, awkward. Like some cosmic artiste had drawn it on my person as some sort of satire. The weight of the gun, it bouncing with the rhythm of the road, that was new, too.

  I didn’t like it, but it made me feel better, all the same. And the shotgun in the back seat had that old familiar feeling, like the last beer of the night. Nothing good, but sometimes familiarity is what you need when everything around you is turning into an asylum.

  30

  Singularity

  I hit the deck just as I opened the door. Either my reflexes were improving, or my instincts knew that projectiles would be imminent.

  “You fucking piece of shit,” Cassie said, “you don’t know what you’ve broken, you useless…” Her voice trailed off as she noticed the shotgun in my hands. “The fuck is that? Don’t tell me you went to see Ben.”

  How she knew, I couldn’t guess. But I played it cool.

  “Yeah,” I said, checking for missing limbs as I got back to my feet. “He says hi, by the way. And he had some other interesting things to say, too.”

  Her rage had dialed down to a simmering boil from the overflow of a minute prior. It was still dangerous going, but then, life seemed pretty risky these days.

  “You shouldn’t have smashed this, Kurt,” she said, nodding at the pile of dust she’d dragged out from underneath the couch, “it was important.” The way she leaned on important, it wasn’t from its artistic value.

  Which wasn’t much.

  “I was investigating, since you didn’t give me much to go on.” It was a lame excuse. Half truth, though. The other half was just that it seemed like a dick thing to do. Poking the bear can be good sport.

  “I told you I’d explain what I knew,” Cassie said. “But you couldn’t wait.”

  “Didn’t seem to want to share on the beach while we were dragging E.T. into the ocean.”

  “Sit down,” she said. “I’ll explain it to you, since you’re being a little bitch about it.”

  “Funny,” I said, taking her up on the offer, “Ben had a similar assessment of me.”

  “He’s always been a good judge of character.”

  “I think the only thing he can judge is if someone can suck dick good.”

  “Maybe,” she said, toeing the shattered dust with her bare foot, “but he’s been good to me.”

  “You know, I am sorry. I know your dad gave that thing to you some time back.”

  “It was Shadow’s, but that’s not why it was important.” Always calling her old man Shadow, after all these years.

  “Then why’d you keep it?”

  “That’s why I kept it, but...look, the other night, I learned some fucking shit, too. After the cave, some people contacted me. Wanted to help. And needed ours.”

  “Go on.”

  “And they told me who wants to kill us.”

  “And?”

  “It’s an ancient group called the Singularity.”

  Ancient groups. Ben had said Shadow was mixed up in all this. And now we were, too.

  So me and her, we had a little talk about who these Singularity assholes were.

  31

  Explaining to Do

  Our talk was more of a monologue, because talking implies the participation of two parties. The whole time I was listening—during which I was informed of advanced near alien-like lifeforms, a secret group known as the Guardians who watched over powerful ancient artifacts called Beacons, and, their nemesis, the Singularity, who wanted said artifacts for their own nefarious purposes—it was like watching a slow, irreversible transformation take place right before me.

  That’s what learning about two secret ancient organizations battling it out for civilization’s survival over the last 10,000 years will do to a relationship.

  When Cassie finished, she kind of looked at me.

  “Well?”

  “You think you know someone,” I said. “Christ, Cassie, if I hadn’t seen half of this, I’d—”

  “I didn’t know all this before last night. Any of it. Before that program just popped up on my screen.”

  “You’re saying that you hadn’t seen it before yesterday, when they told you to hide that...thing that saved us in the ocean.”

  “Yeah, that’s the first time.”

  I wasn’t sure if I was buying that.

  “You led us straight to that cave. Right to it.”

  “Shadow took me there a couple times when I was little.”

  “Sounds like a great bonding experience.”

  “It was memorable enough that it rang a bell when Otto showed me the mock-ups.”

  “And your old man, he used to be part of this clusterfuck. Somehow you had no idea.”

  “That’s what the Guardians told me,” Cassie said. “Hell if he ever told me dick about it. He was around, but he kind of wasn’t sometimes, you know?”

  Yeah, I knew.

  And now I knew that this cave was actually a 10,000 year old landmark called a Shrine. And it had strange powers of the genetic-nano-engineering variety that Otto and his Singularity goons wanted to harness.

  Good luck with that.

  The craft had blown it sky high.

  “And you’re part of all this business now? You’re one of these Guardians?” I said.

  “They want my help in getting rid of Otto. Our help.”

  “And you think the Guardians are the good guys.”

  “I don’t know what to think,” Cassie said.

  “A ringing endorsement,” I said. “But there’s one thing you haven’t explained.”

  “What?”

  “Just who the hell is your father?”

  She pursed her pink lips together and thought about it hard. I could wait. The explanation and ensuing Q&A had already taken hours.

  And I was still confused as hell.

 
“I don’t know. They say he was a Guardian, but seven years ago, when he left, he defected. Works for the fucking Singularity now.”

  “So your father’s working for the psychos along with Otto. Great.”

  “I don’t know what Shadow is yet.”

  But I guessed, at this rate, we were gonna find out.

  32

  Five Left

  I was back in our bed, if not in her good graces. It wasn’t destined to stay that way for long. I was restless, and all my questions hadn’t been answered.

  “So,” I said, “you know a lot about all this for someone who claims to not be very involved.”

  “I told you all I know.”

  “And you don’t know why these Shrines and Beacons are so important? What they do?”

  “They contain some sort of genetic nano-technology. You saw that thing on the beach. And you saw what Otto was willing to do. Murder us like it was nothing.”

  “Yeah, I was there, in case you forgot.”

  “Don’t worry, asshole, I didn’t,” Cassie said.

  “And what about the little green men?” I said. “Where do those play in?”

  “No aliens, Kurt. Just hi-tech stuff.”

  “That ship was alive. That figurine was alive. I felt it.”

  “It has something to do with the Shrines and the Beacons,” she said. “Their power you keep doubting.”

  “There’s no proof they do shit,” I said. “I’ve just seen a lot of crappy art and some bad grammar in a cave.”

  “Kurt?”

  “What?”

  “Fuck off and let me sleep.”

  I paused and let the conversation die.

  A few minutes later, I had an idea.

  “Want to fuck?”

  Her breathing told me that she was awake, but the lack of reaction indicated that, come tomorrow night, it’d be me and Fox trying to share an undersized couch again.

  Hey, can’t blame a guy for trying.

  Pretty girls involved in ancient conspiracies were hard to come by.

  33

  Interest

  I’d insisted on keeping my new shotgun in the cab of the truck. And the .38 in its shoulder holster.

  “Just don’t shoot me by accident,” Cassie said, and shook her dark hair from side to side, like it was inevitable I was going to screw up. “This isn’t a search and destroy mission.”

  “If we’re supposed to get rid of Otto, he’s gonna want to get rid of us, too,” I said.

  “Just, you know, keep it in your pants, all right?”

  “I like being prepared. Being abducted and almost killed instills that in a man.”

  “Whatever you say, Kurt.”

  We were only headed to the grocery store—or the sad, dingy convenience store that pretended to be one—but I figured that this situation was high-stakes, given the circumstances. Besides, rolling around strapped made me feel like I was getting my money’s worth.

  She handed me a list when I got out of the truck.

  “You get this stuff. Nothing else.”

  “All right, Mom.”

  “I’m not screwing around,” she said. “We need to save our money. And you could lose some weight.”

  I tried to come up with a witty remark, but by then her well-formed ass was already inside the door, out of earshot. I couldn’t dispute what she said; I could stand doing a little more cardio. Maybe tomorrow. Or next week. I was getting all the workouts I needed, just staying alive and a quarter step ahead of Otto and these Singularity assholes.

  I grabbed a cart, placing my hand in some unknown, sticky substance on the handle. With a disgusted groan, I wheeled it into the Seaside Market.

  The one thing they had here was fish. If you liked fresh fish, they could do you for that. All types. Me, I’d had enough of the ocean for one lifetime. I headed towards the meager frozen foods section. Just my luck; Johnny was there, a new, smoking hot girl in tow. The bastard. I reckoned he was getting laid at a good clip.

  I tried to cut into the cereal aisle, but he spotted me and bounded over, leaving his girl with a quizzical look plastered across her perfect complexion.

  “Desmond,” he said, “just the guy I was looking for.”

  “Johnny,” I said with a faux-glad-to-see-you vibe, “long time, right?”

  “Yeah, funny,” he said, “about that last time.”

  “Been hustling again at cards, Johnny? Look, I’m pretty busy with—”

  “The reward, Desmond,” Johnny said, “don’t think I didn’t hear about that.”

  “What reward?”

  “For collaring those meth-heads. I want my cut, damnit. I led you to that score.”

  “I’m not sure that was the arrangement.”

  “Desmond,” he said, reaching out with a pale hand to grab me by the shirt collar, “if you don’t give me that fucking money…”

  I slapped his hand away and, without thinking, opened up my jacket, showing the hint of the .38 revolver. The warehouse style strip lighting glinted off the burnished metal.

  “Oh my god,” the girl said, her eyes going wide, “he has a gun.” She was about to start shrieking.

  “Don’t worry,” I said, “me and Johnny are friends. Right, John?”

  His eyes darted between me, his girl and the gun. She was a ticking bomb. I didn’t need everyone to think I was robbing this dustbin for the six dollars in the register.

  “Yeah, baby,” he said, his voice going smooth, “we’re friends. He’s just showing me a new toy. Good seeing you, Desmond. Consider the reward money…interest on what I owed you.”

  “Likewise. Let’s make sure next time isn’t too soon, though. Busy schedule and all.”

  He nodded, and him and his girl shuffled away, leaving their cart behind. I guess they’d have to come back another time.

  I hummed as I checked things off the list, one-by-one. I added in a couple things of my own and met Cassie at the register.

  “What’s this,” she said, and pointed at the illicit cookies and beer.

  I didn’t have an answer. I just pushed them closer to the cashier and shoved a wad of cash towards him when everything was done.

  A minor victory, sure, but you gotta take ‘em when you can.

  34

  No One Else

  The next few weeks were quiet. An uptick in cases—meaning we had one or two to keep ourselves busy—but Otto didn’t poke his head out, the police didn’t come bursting through the door due to the incident at Manny’s Hardware, and both Cassie and I had remained upright and above ground.

  Hell, we were even getting along.

  I was sitting at the kitchen counter, sifting through billing invoices. Cassie had insisted that we step up our act, run this investigating business like a real ship. I didn’t see how that would help us get busier—or avoid Otto-like mishaps in the future—but I complied. It gave me something to do, at least.

  I scanned through the numbers and tossed them in the sad stack. The current year’s tallies were done. Only took me a beer and a half to make it to the end.

  I shrugged and decided to take Fox for a run. That was another thing Cassie was on my ass about. Not that I could argue with her; my fight or flight instinct, which at this point felt like it was always jacked to the turbo-charged position, was also screaming at me to get in better shape.

  At least weird joints didn’t hurt any more in the mornings.

  It’d all have been idyllic if I’d been allowed to spend some of the cash. I’d argued for just a little bit, but Cassie had made it clear—despite the five grand being my exclusive property, at least in my eyes—that it was for saving and contingencies.

  She hinted, on some level, that my acceptance of this fact would patch over the destruction of a priceless 10,000 year old Beacon with as-yet u
nexplained scientific super-powers.

  At the end of my run, I reeled off a couple bills and handed them to the guy behind the counter of the corner newspaper stand. I had no idea how Mitch stayed in business. People around here never had money for food and booze, let alone papers.

  I tore the wrapper from the candy bar and sunk my teeth into the hard, fake tasting milk chocolate and caramel filling. Delicious.

  Fox stared up at me, but I wasn’t in the mood for sharing.

  “Nah,” I said, and his eyes dropped to the ground, like I’d told him I was going to chop his balls off.

  Overall, things were going well. But then, they always are right before the storm.

  I entered the house and sat down to a computer that was going nuts, like it’d detected an imminent nuclear bomb threat. Cassie was out doing whatever she was doing for a case. Or training. She’d been doing a lot of that in recent days.

  That made for two of us.

  I sat down on the couch and clicked through the various messages on the screen, most of them a variant of this is a huge fucking problem and someone needs to come check this shit out right now. Details about what problem needed checking out were lacking, however.

  And when I tried to get any further, the infamous lock screen came up. The Guardians weren’t going to let me into their little club.

  I threw my hands up in frustration.

  “Jesus, you Guardian people are a real pain in my ass. Want help, but won’t give me access to shit. Well, I can’t help you assholes if you’re not going to give me something. Anything.”

  I was talking to myself, but the computer beeped and chortled, and then a video window was up on the screen.

  “We are not assholes, Kurt Desmond,” a perfect voice said. Like the one on the beach. The window was dark, so that I could just see the outline of a person on the screen.

  I pounded on a couple of the keys, but the computer didn’t do anything.